I Need GSP to Stay in Business

I just wrote to Senator Feinstein and Congressman Gallegly to implore them to help revive the GSP program, the removal of it is causing me to have to raise my prices once again to stay in business. This, after a tremendous hike in the price of silver and a weaker dollar forced me to do that already once this year.

I can see this being the final nail in the coffin of many small businesses like my own. The artisans around the world who depend on us for work will be facing less contracts and lost income. I am going to do my very best to keep my own busy, because that has always been my promise to them, but this is going to be a very big challenge for my business.

Meanwhile we have added local USA production (very expensive already) of some designs in the collection, but I still pledge to support the Balinese people I have been working with for all these years.

Grrrr… The good news is, GSP has expired before and been revived. It can happen again. Fingers crossed.

On December 31, 2010, the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) program expired. GSP extends duty-free treatment to several thousand products imported into the United States from more than two-thirds of the world’s countries. GSP is an important way American companies keep costs down. Large and small businesses import products duty-free under GSP.